Pretty Girls Lie, Lie, Lie
by OpalescentStorm
Summary: There are certain things that even Ino won't admit to herself; instead she hides behind a glossy facade. Ino-centric, rated for violence and torture. Previously She's a Monster, edited since then.


It's the day of her test, a test that not many people have dared to take before. On the exterior, she's the same _(as vapid, as pretty, as blank–they say)_ as always. On the inside, she's so afraid, so nervous, so worried that it's hard to smile (_hard to keep the vomit from rising)_ on her walk to the torture and investigations headquarters. She adjusts the hem of her skirt, which is black today, _(won't show the bloodstains she's sure to accrue today)_ and waves cheerily at Sakura, who brightly wishes her good luck.

The walk to the headquarters is _(too)_ short, but she still bounces through the door, giving a _(really disgustingly fake) _smile to her teacher as she enters. "Good morning, Morino-shishou!" she chirps, _(but there's nothing really good about it)_ but he sees right through her act. He wouldn't have become head of torture and investigations if he'd been bereft of a knowledge of human psychology.

A woman informs her on the rules: no kekkei genkai, no killing the prisoner, no seduction, no genjutsu. It's the simplest, most pared-down _(most disturbing and malicious and disgusting and painful)_ forms of torture that she'll be using to interrogate this person, a traitor and a spy from the Hidden Cloud Village. She tries not to become nervous, _(not to think about the family and friends who are anxiously awaiting him to return safely)_ so instead she practices the deep breathing and meditation taught to her by Hinata.

She feels her weapons pouch, and she knows that she has enough supplies. Concentrating on the meditation is not really helping her much, _(she's beginning to hyperventilate and that's the second, make that third, time she's thrown up in her mouth)_ so she goes through the bo kata that Tenten taught her. She doesn't exactly have the materials on hand, _(because unless you're a weapons master, bo don't easily make people bleed or scream or cry or shriek quite like sharp edges can)_ but she can pretend the smooth oak is in her hand, and her body begins to pick up speed in a strange type of dance.

It takes a few minutes that seem like hours before the same woman who briefed her comes out and takes her to a dark chamber. A man _(no longer a shinobi because he is broken, and here she comes to break him even further, to shatter him) _sits there. He may or may not be sobbing, but she is not sure and she's not willing to make guesses.

Using a gloved hand, she forces the man to look her in the face. Now she is all hard edges and razors and cruelty _(although somewhere deep inside her the real Ino cries to be let out)_ as she releases his chin and grabs his hand instead. A senbon, gripped between manicured fingers, _(which are beautiful and falsely perfect, just like her) _forces its way under the nail of the man's right index finger, tearing through soft flesh and fighting towards his knuckle.

He screams, and she feels contempt _(a facade for pity) _burn through her chest, but she also grins ferally. This will be easy, and perhaps she'll finish without too much blood on her outfit _(on her conscience)_. When she asks him questions with her brilliant blue _(enough to drown in)_ eyes, however, he growls at her and tries to spit in her eye. And now her contempt for him is very real.

The senbon pierces beneath each one of his nails, and by the last name he is finally able to contain his screams. He has still not given her the information she needs, _(and she wants to stop, but she can't) _so she grabs a kunai. Slowly _(hesitantly and guiltily and sadly and remorsefully)_, she saws off his forefinger. By now the man is surely sobbing, but she can't stop and he won't tell her what she needs.

Carefully she pulls his face forward, and she gently slices his eyelid open. His mistake is made when he jerksand the kunai pierces his eye _(and her stomach lurches and she needs to vomit now)_. As if she's been burnt, she retracts the kunai as blood seeps from his eye. He cries out in pain, and _(she almost begs him to just tell her already) _she fixes him with a steady glare.

As is expected, he shakes his head. But he is broken, and she knows _(hopes, prays, begs) _that her job won't take much longer. She pulls back for a moment before digging the sharp tip of her kunai into his ear canal. Blood fills his ear, but he doesn't speak. Next is the soft flesh of his neck. Carefully, very carefully, she shreds the skin and a tiny bit of the superficial muscles many times, always getting closer to the jugular. She is within millimeters of it when she hears a whisper. "Stop," he begs.

_(For a moment she doesn't know whether she says it or him,)_ and then he repeats it again. A simple plea, quiet but loud enough that she's not straining her ears. "I'll tell you all I know," he says, and she listens as he speaks. Then she stands up, _(she doesn't trust herself enough to look at him)_ and turns her back, going to find her shishou. Every bit of information she divulges clearly to Morino, and he dismisses her.

She runs _(sprints uncontrollably) _back to her apartment. Not even bothering to close the door behind her, she runs to the bathroom, strips herself, and forces herself into the shower. The water is burning, but she doesn't feel it _(because she's too busy trying to rub the blood off of her skin)_. She just stands and scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until her skin is raw and blood-tinted from all of the abrasion.

Stepping out of the shower, she wraps a towel around herself. The steam she gently wipes from the mirror, _(she's wondering what right she has to touch anything with these hands that have killed so much) _and she stares at herself. Her skin is bright red, her hair has yet to be untangled, and her eyes are bright red and bloodshot from crying.

She doesn't look anything like Ino. She looks like _(may truly be) _a monster.

_(Pretty girls were never meant to be torturers.)_


End file.
